10/11/2017
NEWS STORY
Renault Sport Formula One Team ended the first day of the Brazilian Grand Prix – Formula 1 Grande Prêmio Heineken do Brazil - with Nico Hulkenberg leading the charge for the team with the ninth fastest time, a 1min 10.396secs. After being faster than his team-mate in the morning, Carlos Sainz ended the day two positions off Nico with the eleventh fastest time in the afternoon. Both drivers enjoyed trouble free uninterrupted sessions today.
Nico Hulkenberg: "We got some good laps in through both sessions to identify where we need to make progress, but the car's not a million miles away from where it needs to be. It's always great to lap Interlagos and I've always got a good vibe here. We ended the day in the top ten; tomorrow's job is to see how much further up the grid we can get."
Carlos Sainz: "It was a positive day for me as every time I went out in the car I felt we had made progress and I gained more confidence with the car. It was good that we didn't see any rain in the afternoon as I was able to complete my full programme. We were able to get faster through the day and I think there's more to come tomorrow."
Nick Chester, Technical Director, Chassis: "It was a fairly standard Friday for us. We had a number of assessments to run in FP1 relating to our 2018 design, so we ran conservatively in that session. FP2 was more about this weekend, so the times there are more representative of our relative pace here. Car balance is reasonable but we are working in a few areas to try and unlock a little more speed. On the whole, a pretty good day and we're hopeful of a little better tomorrow."
Check out our Friday gallery from Interlagos, here.